A responsive, useful touchscreen, fantastic performance and a reasonable price - this is an excellent cycle GPS.

The Edge 800 takes up no more room on your bike’s handlebars than a standard cycle computer, but unlike most of the devices you’ll find in Evans, it has a touchscreen that is flush with the edges of the unit.

The screen is very small, measuring a mere 2.6in diagonally, and the touch technology is resistive, but it works surprisingly well. Even in thick gloves we could flick through its various screens without have to stop and fiddle, and because it’s transflective we found it clearly readable in direct sunlight.

GPS performance is superb, with the unit locking on in around 15 to 20 seconds, and the list of what it can do is almost as long it is for the multi-talented Montana 650t. You can add heart-rate and cadence sensors if you really want to get serious and the Edge 800 also supports third-party ANT+ power meters.

For extra motivation the Virtual Partner option allows you to race against yourself on familiar routes. There’s also the option to load Ordnance Survey maps at 1:50,000 (Landranger equivalent) or 1:25,000 (Explorer equivalent), and it’ll even do turn-by-turn satnav.

And even if you don’t want to pay for the OS maps, there are plenty of websites offering Garmin-compatible Open Street Map and Open Cyclemap files for free. It’s a fantastic GPS and fitness device, and considering how much it does, the price is very reasonable.

What is battery life like? Given the size of the screen and the type I guess its not an issue but what did you find? Can I second the recommendation for OpenStreetMap (OSM)? I use OSM on my Garmin eTrex. They are a pain to select and format for your gps though so you might want to look at http://talkytoaster.info/ukmap... where it has all been done for you. I have no connection with this web site. Bearing in mind that Garmin charge a ludicrous 200-ish for 50k OS maps and OSM is free, you might want to drop TT a few bob for his work.Just be careful, its easy to get hooked on correcting and updating OSM!John